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^^2d sSn''! HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES {^NoT^"* 



John Franklin Rixey 

(Late a Representative from Virginia) 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 

Fifty-ninth Congress 
Second Session 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
Februory 25, 1907 



SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
March 2, 1907 



Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing 



WASHINGTON : : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : : 1907 



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SEP V:r^ 1907 
D. ofO. 



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HON. JOHN F. RIXEY. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Proceedings in the House 5 

Prayer by Rev. Henry N. Couden, D. D 5, 8 

Memorial addresses by— 

Mr. Jones, of Virginia 1 1 

Mr. Hay, of Virginia i8 

Mr. Williams, of Mississippi 20 

Mr. Flood, of Virginia 23 

Mr. Kitchin, of North Carolina 27 

Mr. Glass, of Virginia 31 

Mr. Foss, of Illinois 33 

Mr. McCall, of Massachusetts 35 

Mr. De Armond, of Missouri 37 

Mr. Lamb, of Virginia 43 

Proceedings in the Senate 47 

Memorial addresses by — 

Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 51 

Mr. Hopkins, of Illinois 62 

Mr. Hemenway, of Indiana 66 

Mr. Carmack, of Tennessee 68 

3 



Death of Representative John F. Rixey 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE 

Saturday, February ^, igoj. 

The House met at 12 o'clock noon. 

The following prayer was offered by the Chaplain, Rev. Henry 
N. Conden, D. D.: 

We come to Thee, O God, our Heavenly Father, praying for 
that light which never shown on sea or shore, but which illu- 
mines the mind, quickens the heart, and makes for righteous- 
ness in man, proving his Divine sonship and making the whole 
world akin; which dignifies the smallest duty, renders easy the 
hardest tasks, and leads on to heroism and glory when heroes 
are needed. 

■ Our hearts are profoundly moved this morning by the sudden 
death of one who for years in modesty and humility worked 
faithfully and well upon the floor of this Hou.se, rendering to 
his country a service worthy to be recorded by the angels above. 
We most fervently pray that his colleagues, his friends, and the 
dear ones of his heart may be comforted by the thought that 
sometime .somewhere, they will be united to him where sorrows 
never come. Hear us in the name of Christ, the Lord. Amen. 
Mr. Jones, of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, it is with inexpress- 
ible sadness and unfeigned grief that I announce to the House 

5 



6 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

the death of my colleague, the Hon. John F. Rixey, which 
occurred at the residence in this city of his brother, the Surgeon- 
General of the Navy, about 9 o'clock this morning. At some 
future time I shall ask the Hou.se to set apart a day that Mem- 
bers may have an opportunity to pay tribute to the personal 
virtues and public services of my colleague. 

I now send to the Clerk's desk and ask to have read the 
resolutions which I offer, and for which I ask immediate 
consideration. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the House has heard with deep regret and profound 
sorrow of the death of Hon. John F. Rixey, a Representative from the 
State of Virginia. 

Resolved, That a committee of seventeen Members of the House, with 
such members of the Senate as may be joined, may be appointed to attend 
the funeral at Culpeper,Va., and that the necessary expenses attending 
the execution of this order be paid out of the contingent fund of the 

House. 

Resolved, That the Sergeant-at-Arms be authorized and directed to take 
such steps as may be necessary for properly carrying out the provisions 
of this resolution. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate 
and transmit a copy to the family of the deceased. 

The question was taken; and the resolutions were unani- 
mously agreed to. 

The vSpeakkk. The Chair announces the following com- 
mittee. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Mr. Jones, of Virginia, Mr. Hay, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Flood, Mr. Maynard, 
Mr. Glass, Mr. vSlemp, Mr. Southall, Mr. Saunders, Mr. Foss, Mr. INIeyer, 
Mr' William W. Kitchin, Mr. Gregg, Mr. Williams, Mr. De Arniond, Mr. 
Burton, of Ohio, and Mr. Slayden. 

Mr. Jones, of Virginia; Mr. Speaker, as a further mark of 
respect to my deceased colleague, I move that the House do 

now adjourn. 

The Si'KAKKK. Pending the motion, the Chair will announce 



Proceedings in the House 7 

that the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. LovERiNG, will 
preside over the session of the House to-morrow. 

The motion to adjourn was then agreed to. 

Accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 18 minutes) the House 
adjourned until Sunday at 12 o'clock m. 

Monday, February 11. 1907- 

A message announced that the Senate had passed the follow- 
ing resolutions: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with deep sensibility the announce- 
ment of the death of Hon. John F. Rixey. late a Representative from the 
State of Virginia. 

Resolved, That a committee of seven Senators be appointed by the Vice- 
President to join the committee appointed on the part of the House of 
Representatives to take order for superintending the funeral of the deceased. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to the 
House of Representatives. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the 
deceased the Senate do nov^- adjourn. 

And, in compliance with the foregoing, the Vice-President 
had appointed as said committee Mr. Daniel, Mr. Taliaferro, 
Mr. Dick, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Ankeny, Mr. Flint, and Mr. 
Clarke, of x\rkansas. 

Thursday, February 14., ipoj. 

Mr. Jones, of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous 
consent for the present consideration of the following order, 
which I send to the Clerk's desk. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Ordered, That when the House shall adjourn on Sunday, February 24, 
it shall be to meet at 10 a. m. on Monday, February 25, and at the said 
session of Monday, the 25th, eulogies of the life, character, and public 
services of the Hon. John F. Rixey. late a Representative from Virginia, 
shall be in order until the hour of 12 m. 

The Speaker. Is there objection? [After a pause.] The 
Chair hears none. 



8 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

Monday, February ^5, /907. 

The House met at 10 o'clock a. m. 
The Clerk read the following: 

Speaker's Room, House of Representatives, 

Washington, D. C, Febniarv 2j. /907. 
I hereby designate Hon. William A. Jones, of Virginia, as Speaker 
pro tempore during this day. 

J. G. Cannon, Speakei-. 

Mr. Jones of Virginia took the chair as Speaker pro tempore.. 
The Chaplain, Rev. Henry N. Coiiden, D. D., offered the 
following prayer: 

O Thou who hast made us after Thine own image and filled 
our breasts with longings, hopes, and aspirations which are 
ever leading us onward and upward to larger life, we thank 
Thee for the pure, the noble, the true, who in their conduct 
strive continually to measure up to the standard of perfected 
manhood in Je.sus Christ. We tnank Thee for the ties of love 
and affection which bind us together, so that when one rejoices 
all rejoice, when one suffers all suffer with him, and w^hen 
one is taken from our midst in death, the heart is bowed in 
sorrow and we cherish the words he uttered, the things he did; 
above all the service he freely gave to his fellow-men. 

"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, 
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, 
if there be any virtue, and if there be any prai.se, think on these 
things." 

Bless, we beseech Thee, the service of the hour and help us 
to cherish in our hearts the memory of him for whom it is .set 
apart, that we copy his virtues and live the larger life of which 
he was a conspicuous example in his home, in his comnumit)-, 
and on the floor of this House, where he rendered faithful and 



Proceedings in the Honse 9 

efficient service for hiscouutr3^ Comfort his famil}', his friends 
and colleagues, and all who mourn his loss with the blessed 
assurance that though he may not return to us we shall go 
to him and dwell with him forever; and glory and honor and 
praise be Thine, through Jesus Christ our lyOrd. Amen. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. Mann] will please take the chair. 

Mr. Mann took the chair as Speaker pro tempore. 

Mr. Jones of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I offer the following 
resolutions. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the Hon. John F. Rixev, late a 
^Member of this House from the State of Virginia, and in pursuance of the 
order heretofore made, the business of the House be now suspended to 
enable his associates to pay fitting tribute to his high character and distin- 
guished services. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 

Resolved, That the Clerk be, and he is hereby, instructed to send a copy 
of these resolutions to the family of the deceased. 

The resolutions were agreed to. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



Address of Mr* Jones* of Virginia 

Mr. Speaker: When, on Saturday, a fortnight ago, the 
announcement of the death of my late colleague, the Hon, 
John F. Rixey, was made in this House, it came with start- 
ling suddenness to most of us, for, although for many sad and 
dreary months he had been suffering from a deadly malady, 
few outside of his immediate family and closest friends realized 
that the grim destroyer had long since marked him for his 
own. There was little in his appearance and bearing, and far 
less in the lightsome and energetic manner in which he met 
and so faithfully discharged the manifold duties of his high 
position, betokening the dread disease which even then was 
Steadily and surely doing its deadly work. With high cour- 
age, patriotic purpose, and a rare devotion to the interests of 
the constituency which had so long delighted to honor him, he 
positively refused to quit his post of duty upon this floor, 
although repeatedly and earnestly admonished by his physi- 
cians that to remain was to seriously endanger if not to sacrifice 
his life. Hence it was that many of his friends were shocked 
as well as grieved when it became known that almost immedi- 
ately upon the adjournment of Congress he had gone away in 
quest of health— first, to the mountains of North Carolina; 
then to Colorado, and, later still, to northern New York, in 
what proved a vain effort to stay the encroachments of a dis- 



12 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

ease which has ever baffled the physicians' skill, and which no 
clime, warmed b}' the sun's bright circle, can surely and per- 
manently eradicate. And so, despairing of recovery and re- 
signed to a fate which he recognized to be inexorable, he 
quieth- returned in the early winter season to the home in this 
city of his brother. Admiral Presley M. Rixey, the Surgeon- 
General of the Navy, there to await with submissive patience, 
sublime fortitude, and an inspiring Christian resignation the 
final summons to his eternal reward. It is not possible to re- 
call without a feeling of sadness that since the beginning of 
the Fifty-ninth Congress "death's inexorable doom" has been 
pronounced against fifteen of our comrades, eleven of whom 
served in this House and four in the Senate Chamber; but 
never, I fain would believe, has the icy hand of the grim de- 
stroyer been laid upon a Member of this bod>- who was more 
luiiversally respected and esteemed and more generally beloved. 

So to-day, amid the stern exactions of duty which invariably 
accompany and are inseparable from the closing hours of a ses- 
sion of Congress, we have suspended the w^ork of legislation in 
order that opportunity may be given his colleagues to speak in 
words of praise and of eulogy of Mr. Rixey's accomplishments 
and character, and to extol those personal virtues which adorned 
his noble and gracious life. 

John Franklin Rixev was born at the "Retreat," the 
family homestead, in the county of Culpeper, near the town of 
Culpeper, on the i.st day of August, 1854. His father was 
Presley M. Rixe3^ a prominent farmer and extensive landowner. 
His mother's maiden name was Mary Francis Jones. Pied- 
mont, Va., early became the storm center in the war between 
the States, and thus it was that the father, the better to provide 
for the protection and safety of his family, purchased a home 
in the town of Culpeper and removed them thither. It was 



Address of Mr. Jones, of Virginia 13 

there that most of the youth of John F. Rixey was passed, and 
there he received his early educational training in the famous 
Berkeley School. Afterwards he attended Bethel Academy, 
near Warrenton, Va., for several sessions, and in the summer 
of 1876 he was graduated from the law school of the University 
of Virginia with the degree of bachelor of laws. He at once 
began the practice of his profession at Culpeper, and two years 
thereafter was elected attorney for the Commonwealth for his 
county, a position the duties of which he continued to discharge 
with conspicuous fidelity for twelve consecutive years. In i88a 
he married Ellen Barbour, the daughter of the late lieutenant- 
governor, James Barbour, and a niece of the late John S. Bar- 
bour, United States Senator from Virginia. Subsequently he 
went to reside at "Beauregard," near Brandy Station, the beau- 
tiful country seat which continued thereafter to be his perma- 
nent residence up to the time of his death. When, in 1896, 
after a spirited contest, he received the Democratic nomination 
for Congress in the Eighth Congressional district, which was 
followed by a triumphant election, he had held no political office, 
and his personal acquaintance in some of the counties compos- 
ing the district was quite limited. Subsequently each succes- 
sive nomination came to him without opposition, and although 
away from the State during the whole of the campaign of last 
year, he was returned to the Sixtieth Congress with an over- 
whelming majority. Prior to his active entrance upon his 
Congressional duties in December, 1897, Mr. Rixey assidu- 
ously practiced his profession in Culpeper and the adjacent 
counties of Fauquier, Rappahannock, Madison, Orange, and 
Louisa, and in the Federal courts and the supreme court of 
appeals of Virginia. Success seemed assured from the very 
beginning of his professional career. At first he practiced 
alone, but later became associated wnth his brother-in-law% the 



14 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

Hon. John S. Barbour, and it is believed that the firm of 
Rixey & Barbour enjoyed a practice among the most exten- 
sive and lucrative in the rural districts of the State. 

As a lawyer he was conspicuously successful, coming con- 
stantly in contact with many of the brightest luminaries in a 
judicial circuit widely famed for the abihty and learning of its 
practitioners at the bar. Among the illustrious lawyers with 
whom he contested for primacy may be mentioned such eminent 
men as ex -Senator Eppa Hunton, Gen. William H. Payne, 
James V. Brooke, and John Murray Forbes, of Fauquier. 
Attorney-General James G. Field and Catlett Gibson, of Cul- 
peper, and Governor James L. Kemper, of Madison, all of 
whom, save only the first, have now passed from the arena of 
life. That his forensic abilities and legal triumphs should 
have brought him into an enviable prominence amid such an 
imposing array of legal talent is the highest tribute which 
could be paid to his professional standing and reputation. He 
was a well-grounded, well-trained, and thoroughly equipped 
lawyer, and upon every proposition submitted to his judgment 
he brought to bear the w^ell-di.sciplined force of a matured 
intellect. His reasoning was forceful and logical, clear, strong, 
and convincing. As an advocate he achieved success through 
the compelling force of an inexorable logic rather than by the 
employment of the meretricious embellishments of speech and 
rhetorical display. He appealed to the reason rather than to 
the emotional sensibilities of judge and jurw That he was 
ever faithful to the noblest traditions of the profession which 
throughout his career he so conspicuously adorned, and the 
ethics of which he invariably observed, is the universal testi- 
mony of all those with whom he i-)racticed. 

P>ul, descended as he was from a long line of practical planters, 
he inherited a passionate fondness for agriculture, which \\'a.sh- 



Address of Mr. Jones, of Virginia 15 

ington, himself a practical agriculturist, declared to be the 
noblest calling of mankind. Living on a farm, to the direction 
of which he gave his close personal attention, he was what is 
known in Virginia as a country lawyer in contradistinction to 
the city attorney, who has been aptly described as more tech- 
nical and scientific though less philosophic, more astute, though 
less broad, than his country brother. Mr. Rixey was in every 
high essential a typical farmer-lawyer. Nothing gave him 
more genuine pleasure than to ride or drive over his broad and 
fertile fields. Well do I recall with what delight he was wont 
to watch his herds of sleek, fat cattle as they roamed over the 
grass-clad hills and through the rich river bottoms of his two 
magnificent Culpeper County farms. 

The late John Randolph Tucker, profound constitutional law- 
yer, brilliant orator, and great statesman though he was, pos- 
sessed an intimate acquaintance with that character of lawyer 
whose life was spent amid rustic scenes and who breathed the 
pure atmosphere of an inspiring and ennobling pastoral life. 
Standing in this Hall he pronounced upon one of my predeces- 
sors a strikingly beautiful eulogy, in the course of which he 
declared : 

I do not doubt that John Marshall, the most illustrious of the Chief 
Justices of the United States, under the classical shades of his country 
seat at Oak Hall, framed the inexorable logic of his argument m the case 
of Jonathan Robbins and constructed those canons of interpretation in 
that series of marvelous judgments which laid the foundation of his fame 
as the greatest expounder of our Federal Constitution. 

John F. Rixey was a farmer and stock raiser as well as a 
lawyer, and in both capacities he was preeminently successful. 

Of his career in this House I shall say little, for the character 
and the quality of his work done here is known to us all. At 
all times active and vigilant in the performance of his legislative 
duties, he was justly regarded as an ideal Representative, and I 



1 6 Memorial Addresses: Jo/in Franklin Rixey 

venture nothing in saying that the district which honored him 
with six consecutive elections, and which in turn was by him 
so signally honored, never had a more efficient, more patriotic, 
more devoted, and more intelligent Representative. He met 
every duty and faced every obstacle fearlessly, and ever fol- 
lowed where conscience and judgment led. He had few, if 
any, enemies, for his directness, frankness, and singleness of 
purpose so exalted his deeds and gave weight to his words as 
to compel admiration of the man as the exponent of high civic 
virtue. His judgment was sound and his view of a situation 
broad, while he possessed in high degree the comparatively rare 
power of grasping details. He loved his country with genuine 
patriotism and served it with unselfish devotion. No man whom 
I have known during a .somewhat extended service in the Hou.se 
of Representatives was ever more assiduously attentive to the 
public needs of his district or more considerate of the wishes 
and well-being of his con.stituents. 

How natural, then, that he should have been b\- them .so 
implicitly trusted, so highly esteemed, and so so universally 
beloved! It was nothing less than his stern, inflexible, and 
unyielding .sen.se of duty to country and obligation to constitu- 
ents which held him to his post of duty in this Hall against the 
urgent solicitations of family and friends, and w^hen every con- 
.sideration o-f a purely personal character demanded he should 
lay down for the time being his pul)lic burdens and official 
cares. And now he has gone hence forevermore. To no 
mortal has it ever been given to solve the my.steries of life and 
death, and so to our blind vision and finite intelligences his 
untimely taking off may — nay, does — seem premature, but 
there is a solace in the thought that God knoweth when the 
appointed work is done; and so He giveth His beloved .sleep. 

Surely he has not lived in vain whose life has furnished to 



Address of Mr. Jo7ies^ of Virgiaia ij 

the world such a splendid example of fidelity to conscience and 
devotion to duty. Reverencing always the things that are pure 
and noble and of good repute, ever exemplary in habit, con- 
duct, and deportment, it was but natural that he should have 
publiclv and openly professed his faith in Christ by connecting 
himself with one of His churches; and hence it was that some 
years prior to his death he became a member of the Presby- 
terian Church. His whole life was singularly beautiful and 
upright, his faith sublime, and his hope serene. 

Of the mere personal attributes of his character and of my 
clo.se personal and intimate relations to, and my warm and 
tender affection for, our dear friend I shall not trust my.self 
further to .speak, nor could I wish to intrude within the sacred 
precincts of his beautiful home life or lift the veil which hides 
the grief of the stricken wife and bereaved children. 

But recently I stood beside his open grave and with .sorrow- 
ful heart and tearful eyes beheld the performance of the last 
sad rites over his funeral bier in a beautiful cemetery overlook- 
ing the town where had been spent the days of his early vouth 
and maturer manhood. 

As we contemplate, even faintly and imperfectly as mortals 
may, the immensity of the universe, the limitless reach and 
force of Almighty power, and the fathomless depth and gra- 
ciousne.ss of x\lmighty love, we may take leave of our friend 
in the fond hope and .soothing faith that somewhere, .sometime, 
the frail and transitor\- ties of mortal affection broken now may 
be welded for eternity; that he has but gone before, while we 
linger here a little longer. 
H. Doc. Si 2, 59-2 2 



1 8 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 



Address of Mr. Hay, of Virginia 

Mr. Speaker: I first knew John F. Rixev in 1879, when 
he was Commonwealth's attorney for his county, and thereafter 
until he and I came to this House was thrown with him fre- 
quently. As a lawyer Mr. Rixey ranked high at the Virginia 
bar, and for many years was one of the leading members of 
the bar in his and adjoining counties. He was especially 
strong as an advocate, besides being an adviser of sound judg- 
ment, possessing fully the confidence of his large clientage 
and his fellow-members of the bar. His relations with the 
bar were always pleasant, and while firm in advocating his 
own side of the case, he yet was ever ready to give to his 
adversary that courteous and considerate treatment which 
marks the able lawyer and gentleman. 

His course in Congress has been a most successful one. He 
has represented his constituency with rare faithfulness and 
singleness of purpose. No man on this floor was ever more 
ready than he to respond to the many demands which are 
constantly made upon Members here. His public services, 
while not show}-, were well recognized by his people and by 
those who served with him here. His death was most 
untimely. Taken from a sphere of action in which his use- 
fulness was conspicuous, cut off when his powers were ripest, 
tho.se of us who survive him wonder at the inscrutable decrees 
of Providence. 

Tho' much is taken, much a1)i(les. 

While we deeply regret the loss of his presence, his useful- 
ness in this place, his clear judgment, yet there remain to us 



Address of Mr. Hay.^ of Virginia. 19 

the example of his clean life, his upright character, his force- 
ful personality. He was indeed a modest gentleman, one of 
those spirits whose living made the world better, who in all 
of his life exemplified the true man, whose purposes were "to 
strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield," those great princi- 
ples which elevate mankind and lead to a higher and better 
life. 



20 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 



Address of Mr. WiLLiAMSt of Mississippi 

Mr. Speaker: Old Virginia, more frequently, perhaps, than 
any other part of the world, has produced a class of men who 
have displayed in private and in public life the best characteris- 
tics of the old English country gentleman combined with distinc- 
tive American traits — sturdiness, conservatism, common sense, 
and unobtrusive courage in conduct and opinion; acknowledg- 
ing " duty," as Washington and Lee did, to be not only " the 
noblest word in the English language," but the guiding- star of 
their course in life; acknowledging consideration of the opin- 
ions and environment of others as the basis of all healthy and 
pleasant social relations; regarding the family as the keystone 
of the structure of human virtue, and looking upon the denial 
of law-conferred or law-permitted special privileges as the chief 
function of government, while leaving men otherwise free in 
their pursuits, industries, and development. 

Such men are never sensationalists, though unwaveringly 
intolerant of private or public wrong. Such men attribute, as 
a habit of thought, honest motived to others; are in the habit 
of restraining and governing themseh^es, and l)elieve therefore 
in the capacity and right of self-government as inherent in 
others; are sticklers for the limitation of the powers of political 
government so as to forestall and prevent the tyranny of majori- 
ties and so as to secure the right of individual and local evolu- 
tionary progress in freedom, unrestrained except in so far as is 
necessary to prevent one man or one communit>' or one nation 
from connnitting aggression on another. In the family, as in 
.societv, they are charitable in nonessentials, while inculcating 



Address of Mr. Williams.^ of Mississippi 21 

essentials of character and outgrowing conduct more by example 
than by precept, leaving much to the child's enlightened sense 
of duty and individual development, not attempting to mold 
other human beings in their mold, believing that wife and child, 
like each of God's creatures, has the supreme right to live its 
own life in an atmosphere of guiding and guarding love. 

Such men, being just and kind, firm of purpose and conduct 
as well as tolerant and considerate, moderate in all things, not 
extreme, self- restrained, not self-assertive, deserve and are sure 
to have loving and faithful wives, trustful and confiding chil- 
dren, loyal friends, willing servants, few enemies, and the sin- 
cere respect of all men. People attach themselves to them 
without analyzing the motives of their attachment and with or 
without intimacy of as.sociation. Men trust them; children 
love them; employees serve them "for more than the mere 
wages' sake." Tlie whole structure of society can rest upon J 
their strong shoulders as on a secure base. 

Ju.st such a man, to my personal knowledge, was John F. 
RixEY, if his character be limned by an analyst and not a 
eulogist, though in his case I am both. If all men were like 
him and his class, the dream of the t heoretical an archist might 
come true, because there would be little or no need of the phys- 
ical force of po litical gove rnment. The individual life of each 
would, in combination, consummate the highest good of all. 
Justice, equality, and freedom — the sole objects of all right 
government — would prevail as a natural and unforced out- 
growth of the unrestrained development of individuality. 

Mr. Speaker, words are poor things; like ourselves, a breath, 
and with a breath are gone. They can not restore the dead 
friend to a useful, noble, and unselfish. life. They can not com- 
fort the wife, who justly idolized him. 

I wish to God thev could. 



22 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

They can not console the children, who will miss his love, 
example, and guidance. They can serve only to convey to 
those who loved him my abiding personal knowledge and appre- 
ciation of the courtesy, kindness, intelligence, moral courage, 
honesty, and public usefulness of the Virginia gentleman, who 
has gone before us and yet has not ceased to be with us. 



Address of Mr. Flood .^ of Virginia 23 



Address of Mr. Flood» of Virginia 

Mr. Speaker: "The joys of conquest are the joys of 
man." 

There could be no truer interpretation of universal life and 
compound of universal history than this aphorism of the poet. 

Man reads it one way during life's stress and strain; another 
way at life's close. There are two arenas of conquest — the 
one, objective; the other, subjective. The one has ambition 
for its inspiration and guide; the other, wisdom. The one is 
the conquest of the world and all it implies; the other, the 
conquest of self. The one passeth away and is forgotten as a 
dream; the other is indestructible. 

One conquest is of the head; the other of the heart. And 
almost the last lesson most of us learn is that the heart is 
higher and nobler than the head; that the heart alone can 
really interpret life; that it alone can cherish its own intima- 
tions and soar with them to the heaven of their fulfillment. 

We do not erect monuments in our hearts to those who 
are "great like Caesar, stained with blood, but to those who 
were only great as they were good." 

The world is expending treasure in disentombing the memo- 
rials of dead and buried empires and deciphering the hiero- 
glyphics in which they are recorded, but the records of a good 
man's life are writ in letters so plain and imperishable that 
"he who runs may read." 

John F. Rixey was born in Culpeper County, Va., on 
August I, 1854, and reared in the country. 

The old Greeks, who seemed to know everything and to 
anticipate everything, called the earth our mother. Our 



24 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

brother, whose memor}' we are met to enshrine in oiir hearts, 
drank deep of the gentle and salutary monitions of nature. 
He loved to contemplate the symbolism of life in the shifting 
panorama of the seasons, the unfolding of nascent manhood 
which had its type in the awakened vigor of spring, the stress 
(jf life as pictured by the heat and glare of the storms of sum- 
mer, the fruits of a well-fought fight symbolized in the 
golden grain and fruitage of autumn, and the repose typified 
b}' the long nights and manteling snows of winter. As we 
read the short and simple annals of his life in the ' ' Official 
Directory" we see how the love of country dominated him. 
He writes himself down as "lawyer and farmer." 

In due course he was sent to the connnon schools of his 
neighborhood, where he was subjected to their discipline and 
training, and then came the larger outlook and curriculum of 
Bethel Academy, and last, the strenuous and exigent labors of 
an academical and professional course at the University of 
Virginia. 

Thus equipped he entered the legal profession and began its 
practice in his native county. His industry, honesty, learning, 
and sound judgment soon brought him a lucrative practice, 
which he conducted actively until he was elected to Congress. 
During this period he was three times elected prosecuting attor- 
ney of Culpeper County, serving with distinguished ability in 
this responsible position for twelve years. 

As a lawyer he ranked high among the people and l)ar of 
northern Virginia, a section which has ever been distinguished 
for its great lawyers. In 1896 he was elected to Congress, and 
such was the esteem entertained for him by the people of his 
district that he was reelected five times with practicall\- no 
opposition. 

In his political ideas and methods he has .sometimes been 



Address of Mr. Floods of \lrgijiia 25 

called a partisan. If by this was meant that he sincerely and 
honestl}' believed in the principles and purposes of his party 
and tried by all honorable means to promote the public good b}' 
placing its men and measures in control of the Government, the 
accusation was true, and the term was simply a just tri])ute to 
a true and honest man. 

It has been the partisan who in all ages of the world and 
every field of human progress has led the way. Wherever con- 
flicts of opinion have determined the thoughts and actions of 
mankind, there the well-equipped partisan has been the guiding 
power and controlling force for good. 

During the time he was a Member of the House of Represen- 
tatives Mr. RixEY stamped his views and personality upon some 
of the most important legislation enacted by the American 
Congress. For nearly nine years he was a member of the 
Committee on Naval Affairs and aided in .some of the mo.st 
radical and useful reforms in the history of the country, and 
was no less u.sef ul in calling attention to and preventing some 
of the worst abuses that threatened the nation. 

Such, in brief outline, are the unadorned facts of the career 
of John F. Rixey. They illustrate a character rounded, 
integral and complete, and such a character always enlists our 
interests and challenges our analysis. 

No man ever achieved what he achieved unless he had rich 
native endowments. You can not develop a negative nature. 
You can not train faculties which do not exist. 

Shakespeare, in de.scribing his hero Brutus, says: 

His life was gentle; and the elements 

So mix'd in hini, that Nature might stand up. 

And say to all the world, "This was a man!" 

And we all know that the fiber of gentleness always enters 
into the texture of ideal manhood. 



26 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

Mr. Rixey was a modest, companionable, ingenious, friendly 
man. 

No man can pass half a century of life, whose maturity is 
tested by the keen scrutiny of legal and parliamentry environ- 
ments, and sustain that scrutiny unrebuked and unchallenged, 
who does not have the roots of his nature struck deep nito the 
granite subsoil of conviction. Just as no oak can fling its 
branches broadcast to wrestle with the storms whose nutriment 
is not drawn from the limestone and iron of the earth. 

Mr. Rixey was trained in the austere and inflexible doctrines 
of the Presbyterian Church. He sat under the ministry of a 
church w^hose clergy are compelled to sustain the rigid and 
protracted tests of both academic and theological institutes; a 
church which has never shrunk from facing the conception of 
truth whether that truth were pleasant or unpalatable. But 
the fabric of his faith was gentleness and l)rotherly kindness. 

When a man has attained to the possession of these attributes 
he has, indeed, experienced the highest "joys of conquest." 
I have often read with pleasure this passage from Lord Bacon: 
The poet saith excellently well: "It is a pleasure to stand upon the 
shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the win- 
dow of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no 
pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth, 
where the air is always clear and serene, and to see the errors and wander- 
ings and mists and tempests in the vale below. Certainly it is heaven 
upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and 
turn upon the poles of truth." 

And so we see how the life of John F. Rixey, turning upon 
the.se poles, made him true in all the relations of life. And we 
can safely leave him there. 

May it ])e said of all of lis, as we can say it of him: 
He wore the white flower of a blameless life. 



Address of Mr. Kitchin^ of North Carolina 



Address of Mr. Wiluam W. KiTCfflN. of North Carolina 

Mr. Speaker: I desire to add the simple tribute of a high 
regard and a warm personal friendship to the memory of the 
late Hon. John F. Rixey. If length of life under the guid- 
ance of Providence were always commensurate with one's vir- 
tues, he would have survived more than threescore j'Cars and 
ten. If life is to be measured by virtue, by the development 
of the lovable and noble qualities of heart and mind and by 
obedience to their suggestions, then his life was long and full, 
though his departure was in middle age, or manhood's prime, 
as we reckon our periods. 

Entering Congress together ten years ago, for the last eight 
years serving together on the Committee on Naval Affairs, of 
which he was a member before my assignment to it, sharing 
the same views upon nearly every question that has divided 
that committee, we became closely associated in our public 
service, more closely than I have been with any other Repre- 
sentative. Probably no Member had better opportunity of 
knowing his arduous work and patriotic zeal than myself. In 
my judgment, and I say it deliberately and after consideration, 
no man during my membership of this body has brought to the 
service of his country a more thorough patriotism, more unself- 
ish loyalty to public interest, or a more incorruptible integritv, 
nor has anj^one followed the path of duty as he saw it more 
unfalteringly and courageously than our deceased friend. He 
was a type of the splendid Representative; of strong heart, 
brave spirit, clear intellect; a man of conscience, courage, and 
ability; modest but alert, unassuming but energetic, tolerant 
but positive. 



28 Memorial Addresses: JoJin Franklin Rixey 

Ability is an essential of every great Representative, bnt in- 
tegrity is the great essential of the best Representative. In 
this age of seductive allurements, under which men sometimes 
become negligent of public interests, and of strong temptations, 
under which they sometimes become unfaithful, a people should 
be regarded as happily performing their duty to themselves 
and the Republic in sending to a legislative body a Representa- 
tive of both the capacity and the character of Mr. RixEY. 
For many years he held the commission of a great, proud, and 
intelligent constituency residing within the shadow of this 
Capitol, and as that commission fell from his hands on the 
9th of February it was as unstained as the spotless snow that 
then enveloped his district. 

There has been no session of recent Congresses when divi- 
sions have not appeared on this floor upon matters coming from 
the Naval Affairs Committee. These divisions have not been 
upon propositions vital to the Navy. It is both Democratic and 
Republican to have a .strong Navy of the best men and best 
material sufficient for the needs of our great country. Men in 
both parties have differed and will probably continue to differ 
as to the requisite magnitude of the Navy from time to time, 
depending largely upon each one's estimate of the probabilities 
of war and his confidence in our position and resources, all rec- 
ognizing the necessity for the public of a proper Navy and the 
injustice upon the public of an unnecessarily large one. The 
divisions have been upon subsidiary matters, such as the num- 
ber and kinds of new .ships, how to obtain them, at what price, 
and how to ( btain armor and armament, the establi.shment and 
improvement of navy-yards and stations, methods of economy 
and development, and other matters of secondary importance to 
the primary proposition of the creation and maintenance of a 
sufficient Navy. Though these subsidiary matters have some- 



Address of Mr. KitchiJi^ of NortJi Carolina 29 

times involved political principles and aroused partisan discus- 
sion, yet, as a rule, the divisions upon matters from the Naval 
Committee have not been partisan. They have, however, pro- 
duced much controversy and frequent debates. In these Mr. 
RiXEY was often a leading participant and always proved him- 
self well equipped, accurate, ready, forceful, and entirely con- 
versant with the subject at isstie. He was an active, vigilant, 
vigorous, and candid antagonist, who never avoided the real 
point at stake and never struck below the belt. 

His personal life was clean and his language pure. I never 
heard a profane or vulgar expression from his lips and never 
knew him to do an act his pastor would not have approved. 
Immorality and vice received no encouragement from his speech 
or conduct. By precept and example he contributed to the vir- 
tue and morality of ever}' circle he entered. I never knew him 
until the maturity of his powers and character, but a knowledge 
of him then necessarily involves much insight into his earlier 
years. When one beholds a great oak he knows the rich ingre- 
dients that made it, in what soil the roots were nourished in its 
youth, what storms it has resisted, and what winters of adversity 
it has endured. From our deceased friend's strong, fixed char- 
acter of manhood one can easily conceive the healthy environ- 
ment of his boyhood, the various temptations that had in vain 
beat about his pathway, the steady application of his mind and 
heart to the duties of life, and the firm, fundamental, moral 
character that had . controlled him in his constant progress iu 
the esteem of his fellow-men. 

I had the honor to be one of the committee of the House that 
attended the burial at Culpeper. In the funeral procession we 
observed that all of the business houses were closed out of re- 
spect for the occasion. A profound sorrow was over the little 
city. Notwithstanding the inclemenc}^ of the weather, the snow 



30 Manorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

covering the earth, a large concourse of his constituents, friends, 
and neighbors gathered in the cemetery to pay a last sad tribute 
to his mortal remains. The great outpouring of the people 
from far and near, who knew him well, bespoke the high esteem 
in which all classes held him. Among them he had lived with- 
out reproach. Before them he had established a right to the 
high title of a Christian gentleman, and those who assembled at 
his grave in loving remembrance of his life and character hon- 
ored them.selves in the service they rendered to his memory. 
And they seemed to realize, as we do, that his death is a loss to 
his State and to our common country. 

Mr. Speaker, the kind expressions which we utter to-day in 
his memory are necessarily incomplete, for words are inadequate 
to express what the heart contains when we contemplate the 
death of such a man. In addition to the many pleasant recol- 
lections which I shall always cheri.sh of him, I shall have the 
comforting thought that it is well with him. Knowing him 
as I did, I am glad to think that as the remorseless enemy 
approached he had no fear and his faith was strong, and when 
that enemy conquered his body and lead his spirit to the 
dividing line, I doubt not that the " Friend that sticketh closer 
than a brother ' ' was with him in the valley of the shadow and 
bestowed upon him the crown of immortality on the other side. 



Address of Mr. Glass., of Virgniia 31 



Address of Mr, Glass, of Virginia 

Mr. Speaker: As a surviving colleague of the late John F. 
RiXEY, I desire, in a word, to indicate how tenderlj- 1 regard his 
memory. In nn- humble estimation no Representative in Con- 
gress better deserved, when he died, the kindly tributes to his 
personal worth which we are accustomed to pay here than the 
deceased Member from the Eighth Virginia district. Mr. Rixey 
was a man of solid character and superior intelligence. He had 
good preparation for the active pursuit of public affairs, which 
so soon engaged his attention, and his exceptional talents made 
it certain that his a.spirations must enjoy a large mea.sure of ful- 
fillment. His early obligations as a trusted official of the State 
were discharged with such efficiency and fidelity as to merit the 
higher distinction that was bestowed upon him by his commu- 
nity when he was sent to be a Member of this House; and I am 
sure we will all agree that his service here, extending over a 
period of ten years, was characterized by a devotion and an-x 
industry that entitled him to the confidence and esteem witli -^ 
which his people so richly and so repeatedly honored him. 
His particular usefulness to his own district and his cheerful 
readiness to serve his own constituents quickly expanded 
into an ideal representative relation to his State and country, 
so that all Virginia mourns his death as a distinct bereave- 
ment of the Commonwealth, and the nation has cause to 
lament the loss of a diligent and patriotic servant. 

Sprung from a good ancestry and reared in an atmosphere of 
refinement, nobody better understood, and no life was more 
surely conformed to, that philosophy which teaches that the 
well-being of the soul depends only on what we are and that 



32 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

nobleness of character is nothing else but the love of good and 
scorn of evil. Familiar with the niceties of social intercourse, 
and not insensible to the value of real tact, nevertheless the per- 
sonal and official transactions of Mr. Rixey were distinguished 
b}- a frankness that knew no concealment and a courage that cal- 
culated not consequences. Though singularly unobtrusive by 
nature, he never evaded a duty nor sought to shift a responsi- 
bility. Tolerant of oppo.sing opinions, he was firm and forceful 
in the a.ssertions of his own convictions, and yielded only 
when it seemed best for his country that he should. His fine 
qualities of unselfishne-ss and his complete zeal for the public 
interest as he conceived it were remarkably exhibited in his 
long service on the Committee on Naval Affairs of this House. 
My intimacy with Mr. Rixey did not extend to his fireside. 
That was my misfortune and no fault of his hospitality; but 
there is no need to draw aside the curtain and peer into the 
sanctity of the saddened home to tell that he was a devoted 
son, a gentle husband, an affectionate father, a loyal brother. 
He must have been these to have been so modest a gentleman, 
so true a friend, so brave a man, so patriotic a representative 
of his people. 



Address of Mr. Foss^ of Illinois 2)2> 



Address of Mr. Foss, of Illinois 

Mr. Speaker: I desire to add my tribute to that of others 
on the life of our late colleague. 

Singularly enough, while the naval appropriation bill was 
under consideration in the House, Mr. Rixey, who had always 
been a member of the committee during his Congressional 
service, died. He had always been one of the active members 
of the committee and had taken a great interest in naval 
affairs, both in the committee and in the debates on the floor of 
the House. 

This is the finst death that has occurred on the committee for 
some time, the last being that of the late Amos J. Cvimmings, 
five years ago. Mr. Rixey was a man who was intensely 
loyal to his constituents. He .served them da}- and night, and 
the many large public improvements which he secured for his 
district are a testimonial of his indefatigable industry and 
loyalty to his constituents. 

Mr. Rixey was a conservative man. He was not easily 
carried away by the whim or fancy of the hour. His whole 
nature was embedded in the solid rock of conservatism. He 
would oftentimes stand alone, unmoved by the persuasions of 
his colleagues and friends. 

Above all, he was a man who had the courage of his con- 
victions. If there is any one characteristic that has .shone 
through his Congressional service here in this body it was that 
of his splendid courage. He not onl}^ dared to think for him- 
self, but he dared to fight for what he believed to be right. 
Frequently upon this floor he led the charge against some 
provision in the naval bill wdaich he did not feel that he could 
H. Doc. 812, 59-2 3 



.34 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

support, and whenever he led he led with all the splendid fire 
and determination of a general on the field of battle. 

He was a man also of intense honesty of purpose and sin- 
cerity. He was one whom it took some time to thoroughly 
know. Though a man of pleasant demeanor and easy to 
approach, yet he was not a man who showed up his real worth 
on first acquaintance. He was frequently misunderstood, but 
upon intimate acquaintance he unfolded a wealth of sterling 
virtues which commanded the respect and admiration of all 
within the circle. 

His death has been a great loss to this House. His Con- 
gressional service has been an honor to the State and the 
nation, and his memory will be cherished through the coming 
years. 



Address of Mr. McCall^ of Massachusetts 35 



Address of Mr. McCall, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker : I feel it my duty to add one word expressing, 
I fear very inadequately, the high opinion that I had of our 
late colleague John F. Rixey. I am led to do this from my 
personal regard for him and from the relations of the States of 
Massachusetts and Virginia, and also from my association with 
Virginia Representatives upon this floor. These two noble 
Commonwealths have been associated together since before the 
foundation of this Government, and, with the exception of an 
unfortunate period which was necessary fully to establish our 
Government, they have emulated each other in everything that 
has contributed to our national glory. And I trust and believe 
they will continue to engage in that noble rivalry. 

Then, I have been very closely associated with the Repre- 
sentatives of Virginia upon this floor. During my first term 
of service it was my privilege to be upon the Committee. on 
Elections, of which that astute and able lawyer, that kindly 
gentleman, and that fair-minded man. Governor O'Ferrall, was 
the chairman. Afterwards for many years I was associated in 
service upon the Committee on Ways and Means with the dis- 
tinguished gentleman who is now governor of the Common- 
wealth of Virginia. And I am proud to say that I number 
among my friends many who have been or now are members of 
the able delegation from Virginia. 

And so I feel that I should say one word here concerning 
that faithful and sterling Representative in w^hose memory 
this service is held. It adds something to our regard for 
representative government that a man like John F. Rixey 
should be sent here — a kindly man, an able man, a man who 



36 Memorial Addresses: Joint Frankliii Rixey 

combined the energy and force of an intellectual fighter with 

the urbanity of a gentleman. It would be creditable to any 

constituency in this country that it should send such a man 

here. And so, Mr. Speaker, I desire to say .simply that I 

had a very hig-h regard for him personally. I have watched 

him upon this floor, I have marked the force with which he 

spoke, and I have noticed his modesty and lack of all 

ob'trusiveness. But modest though he may have been, we 

had no difficulty in detecting in him the essence of true 

manhood and that living spark of which Wordsworth speaks 

when he says : 

If thou indeed derive thy light from heaven. 

Then, to the measure of that heaven-born light, 

vShine, Poet, in thy place, and be content. 

The stars preeminent in magnitude. 

And they that from the zenith dart their beams 

(Visible though they be to half the earth. 

Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness), 

Are yet of no diviner origin, 

No purer essence, than the one that burns, 

Like an untended watch fire, on the ridge 

Of some dark mountain ; or than those which seem 

Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps. 

Among the branches of the leafless trees. 



Address of Mr. Dc Annond^ of Missouri 2)7 



Address of Mr. De Armond of Missouri 

Mr. Speaker: When John Franklin Rixev died the Re- 
public lost a faithful servant, Virginia lost ohe of her noblest 
citizens, all of us who were acquainted with him lost a true and 
reliable friend, and his family suffered a loss which words can 
not describe. 

Since I have been a Member of this House death has been 
busy in the Virginia delegation. Out of it have died Barbour 
and I,ee, Epes, Otey, Wise, and Rixey — one from the Senate 
and five from the House. 

Shortly after the termination of their membership in this body 
six others with whom I served passed over the Great Divide — 
L,awson, Edmonds, Meredith, Turner, Walker, and O'Ferrall. 
So in the period of a little less than eight Congresses twelve 
Members from \^irginia have died, six of them out of active 
service in the Congress and six lately retired from it. I believe 
this mortalit}- in the Congressional representation of the Old 
Dominion is perhaps unmatched in the histor}' of the Govern- 
ment. 

John F. Rixey was a man, as those of us who were ac- 
quainted with him well know, of the very highest type and of 
the noblest characteristics. He was modest, gentle, resolute, 
conscientious. He possessed the substantial abilities so nec- 
essary for a successful career here and elsewhere, and they 
were associated with a modesty truly charming and a courage 
entirely unobtrusive, but equal to the requirements of any occa- 
sion. He came of a fine line of ancestry, out of the citizenship 
of a fine old Commonwealth where character and manhood, and 



38 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

the sturdy as well as the gentle virtues that characterize both, 
are estimated and appraised quite as highly, certainly, as any- 
where else in the Union or in the world. 

It seems to us, measuring human life as it is ordinarily 
measured, that he died prematurely and in his prime; but who 
knows when the right time to die has arrived or when it will 
arrive? Who knows whether it is not really better to fail in 
the prime and meridian of life, when those who esteem us 
remember us as we are at our best, than to fade and finally sink 
to rest in its evening, when the shadows are long drawn and 
when almost everything that makes life attractive and marks 
for us its achievements has long since ended? Old age often 
is weakness without its winsomeness; it is childhood without 
the charm of childhood. The memory dwells upon tho.se who 
have departed as we knew them just before the end, the time 
of their departure. Mr. Rixey will dwell in our memories and 
the memories of others who knew him as a man fully equipped 
and strong and ready for the battle of life; a man full of 
achievements in the contest. Perhaps, after all, when the 
shock is over and when grief has adjusted itself to the blow, 
and when time has effaced or dimmed the traces of the great 
sorrow that death always must bring — perhaps, after all, it is 
better that he shall dwell in our memories and in the memories 
of his own dearly loved ones as a man in his prime and in his 
glory, rather than as the fading, vanishing remnant of a life 
past its usefulness and its power and lingering only, waiting 
only for the inevital)le summons that comes in weakness and 
clo.ses in the night when the .stars have burned out, when noth- 
ing remains to illumine the sky with a suggestion of the halted 
power of manhood. The .star that is blotted suddenly from the 
sky leaves in the memory of him who gazed upon it in its 
.splendor a ])icturc of a magnificent light, l)ut the star that 



Address of Mr. De Armond, of Missouri 39 

pales and pales and pales and finally flickers out can leave no 
memory so well worth cherishing. 

Representative Rixey was an excellent type of what has been 
known and described as the ' ' country lawyer. ' ' The country 
lawyer still exists and will exist in our land for many days, 
and, let us hope, many ages, but not so numerously in the 
comparison as in the former time. 

In the early days of the Republic all our lawyers, with but 
few exceptions, were country lawyers, bred in the country, liv- 
ing in the country, identified with the country, following the 
pursuits of the countryman. We have arrived now at the stage 
of progress or development, or at least of advancing population, 
when, in large measure, professional men are gathered together 
in cities. The professional man of the city is essentially dif- 
ferent from the professional man of the country. He is more 
famihar with books, he is further along in scientific pursuits 
and developments, but he also is farther from nature. In a 
broad sense he knows less of men and their wants and rights 
and feelings and aspirations. The country lawyer, if he be a 
man of ability and of character— and if he be not he can not 
succeed — comes to live in close touch and in full understand- 
ing with the people among w^hom he dwells. Their wants are 
his wants; their aspirations are his aspirations; their triumphs 
are his triumphs; their sorrows and their struggles are his sor- 
rows and his struggles; their life is his life. He communes 
with nature more and with books less. He learns more of gen- 
eral principles and less of special cases and special instances. 
He devotes himself more to broad thought and broad reasoning 
and broad philosophic principles, and less to what this man or 
that man, in this positioner that position, here or there, now or 
at some other time, said upon some question. He does not look 
particularly for some case that is in point, but he digs deep for 



40 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixcy 

fundamental principles; he looks far into the philosophy of 
things and thence deduces his conclusions; and upon this foun- 
dation, out of the materials thus gathered, he rears his super- 
structure strong and synnnetrical and, above all things else, 
natural. This man of whom I now speak dwelt in the country, 
and was of the country. A member of the learned profession 
and learned in it, he was a practical farmer, interested in all 
that concerns the people engaged in the tillage of the soil and 
in the care of their flocks and herds. He was therefore, by 
natural development, a broad man in thought, purpose, and 
deed; a charitable man; in action, a plain, practical man. He 
looked at things about him with the clear eye of experience. 
He read the book of nature as it was spread out before him, 
and there learned lessons far more valuable than man has traced 
in any book man has written or will ever write. 

It seems strange, in this day of progress and advancement in 
science and in discovery, that there are still some diseases so 
formidable, so deadly, so all-pervading, so unconquerable that 
the strongest go down before them as readily as the weakest. 
One of the most formidable of all diseases is the "white death," 
the plague of consumption, to which our friend fell a victim. 
In all the charities of philanthropy, in all the schemes of benev- 
olent purposes, he will be among the greatest of benefactors 
who shall discover the cause of and the sure cure for this deadly 
disease, which strikes down manhood in its prime, which spares 
neither age nor youth, which devastates the earth, and marches 
unconquered through the ages. Let us hope that human science, 
and perseverance, and research may bring us something that 
will stay the ravages of tliis fell destroyer. 

Never upon one of these occasions, or upon any occasion 
where we face death, can we rid ourselves — nor would \\e if 
we could — of the dreadful charm, of the fateful mystery, that 



Address of Mr. Dc Annoiid^ of Missouri 41 

ever hangs around human Hfe. We come into the world with- 
out our own voHtion; we go out when, how, where, none — no 
more the wisest than the most fooHsh — can tell. We are here 
for a little while or for a comparativel}' long period, and j^et 
how short is even the longest life when contrasted with the 
cycles of time and with the endless ages of eternal being. Life 
is a great mystery, a mystery all through, a mystery in every 
part — in its inception, in its progress, in its ending. 

As we gaze into the grave where loved ones are laid, mind, 
spirit, imagination, hope fly far beyond the tomb, into pictured 
realms we know not where, by means we know not what. So 
it was when we laid our friend awa^- to rest. So it was when 
we stood around his open grave in the snow-covered ground 
of the beautiful cemetery where he now reposes. So it is now, 
vSo it will be when we in our turn are laid awa}' to rest in 
mother earth, and so it will be most assuredly until the career 
of humanit}" is ended and man no longer is a pilgrim going 
up and down over the surface of this planet. People reason 
about it, consult others about it, indulge iii predictions about 
it, search Holy Writ concerning it. Yet all of it is mystery. 
Only the eye of faith can pierce the distant future. Only upon 
the wings of hope can we traverse the space which inter\-enes 
between this life and the life beyond. Ever}' man's hope, 
ever}' man's aspiration, every pulsation of the human heart 
tends to nourish a conviction that there must be a life bej'ond 
this, that this can not be the end of everything, that there 
must be another sphere of existence, sublimated out of the 
human, in which our being shall be endless, unclouded, 
unmarked by sorrow or care, where the sun shall eternally 
shine, where life shall have no end. In this faith we live 
through this earth life; to this we cling in our moments of 
darkness and when despair would settle upon us like a pall. 



42 Memorial Addresses: John Frank/in Rixey 

Upon this we rest when threatened with earthly extinction. 
It is our hope, the star whose beams pierce through the 
clouds and fog and darkness when our loved ones go hence. 
Even if it could be demonstrated that this hope is without 
basis, that its aspirations have nothing upon which to rest, 
it would be cruelty to know the truth and to reveal it. We 
rest upon the hope, we dwell in the promise, and when this 
life is over, be the ending soon or be it remote, be it glorious 
or be it the reverse, we all go down in the hope that there 
shall be an awakening beyond the tomb, and that the spirit 
which dominates and animates us here, which triumphs over 
flesh and over distance and circumstance, which soars upon 
its wings of faith and builds with its power of genius beyond 
the clouds wall survive when the earthly tabernacle lies low in 
the dust from which it was originally created. 



Address of Mr. Lamb, of Virginia 43 



Address of Mr. Lamb» of Virginia 

Mr. Speaker: For the fourth time in twice as many 3^ears 
the Virginia delegation in this House are called on to pay 
tribute to a departed colleague. Truly in the midst of life we 
are confronted by death. Death loves a shining mark, and in 
the demise of John F. Rixey it found one. An able and con- 
scientious Representative, a loyal citizen of the Commonwealth 
of Virginia, a devoted husband, father, and brother has passed 
from earth to the spirit land. 

It is no exaggeration to say that few Members of this House 
during the past decade commanded more respect and admira- 
tion than did our colleague, for he possessed qualities of head 
and heart that endeared him to all who were thrown with him 
in the committee rooms and on the floor. 

Had this blow fallen to one of the older Members of our 
delegation we would have said : " This is but nature's law; the 
machinery that sustains the mystery we call life has failed to 
perform its appointed task and the no less mystery of death 
is the natural consequence." 

According to man's allotted time, years of great influence 
were before him ; years in which to lay up knowledge and ren- 
der service to those who loved, honored, and trusted him ; years 
in which to study the science of government and apply its 
principles; years in which to study human nature and work 
out plans for the betterment of his fellows; yea, more, for him 
personally years in which to rear and direct the young and 
tender plants that gathered around his hearthstone ; years of 
love and care for the one who brought life to his life and peace 
to his home. 



44 McDtorial Addresses: JoJiu Franklin Rixcy 

Without the show}' qiiahties of the orator, he possessed what 
we all know is more valuable in a Representative — sound judg- 
ment and patient attention to the details of the work. Through 
this he reached results here that fully met the demands of his 
constitueijts and would have insured him continued service as 
long as he desired to be a Representative in Congress. 

The Commonwealth of Virginia can ill afford to lose, in the 
prime of life, such a man as was our deceased comrade. The 
people outside of the Eighth district knew and appreciated him. 
In the city of Richmond .several years ago he addressed a very 
cultivated audience, and as I pas.sed through the crowd I heard 
men say: "That .speech was worth listening to. Some da}- 
that man will be governor of the State." 

I had a better opportunity, po-ssibly, than any other of our 

delegation of judging as to the estimate put upon him by the 

people of the Eighth district, for I canva.ssed several of his 

counties in 1898, and since that time have .spoken frequently in 

various places in the district. I did not meet a man who spoke 

of him in any but the highest terms, and all seemed perfectly 

satisfied with the valuable service he gave them. If he had 

enemies — and who has served ten 3-eaTS in Congress without 

making some — I never met one. The opinion held of him in 

every county, so far as I have been able to learn, was strongh* 

voiced in the Alexandria Sunday Times of ye.sterday a week 

ago. After summing up the work done for that city, the writer 

said: 

What Ik- has done for this cit\' and county he has done for ever}' other 
county in liis district, and has never failed to aid anything that tended to 
advance the interest of his mother vState. Words are inadequate to do 
justice to this genial, high-toned, honorable \'irginia gentleman, now laid 
beneath the .soil of old Virginia, whom he loved so well and served so 
faithfully. 

This would be a fitting epitaph on his toml), where he sleeps 
beneath the .sod of old Culpeper Count) , where his boyhood 



Address of Mr. Lamb, of I 'irginia 45 

days were spent as he watched the surging tide of battle roll 
over the red hills and lovely plains of his native county. He 
was a lad of nine summers when as a man of 22 years of age I 
led a squadron of troop in a deadly fraj* through the streets of 
Culpeper. He grew to manhood amidst the struggles and trials 
of a people who lost all save their unquenchable spirit and 
unstained honor. No wonder that he possessed his full share 
of both and that they fed his young heart with noble resolves 
and fired his soul with a determination to fight life's battles as 
bravely as he had seen men face the mortal perils of the 
battlefield. 

Our colleague and friend accomplished more in two decades 
than most men of equal, if not better, opportunities, have done 
in twice that time. Witness an honorable and efficient ser\-ice 
as Commonwealth's attorney of his county for twelve years. 
See and enjoy, as I have, the culture and refinement and com- 
fort of one of the best-ordered and most hospitable homes in all 
Virginia. Turn the pages of the Congressional Record and see 
his spirit, character, and manhood imprinted wherever dutv 
impelled, or an entirely fitting and never a made opportunity 
presented itself. 

If in a little over two decades he had accomplished this much, 
what might he not have achieved had robust health and long 
life been given unto him? We need not speculate. The end 
came. The shock was severe to most of us. 

Of his faith I need not speak. I have reason to know that 
it was strong and abiding. It served him well when trials 
came. It accounts in part for his popularity in this House and 
elsewhere. It had been growing with his years. The spirit 
speaks when the lips are closed. We can not conceal our inner 
life from others, tr\- all we ma}-. The laws of the spirit are as 
fixed as those of gravitation. 



46 McDiorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

My personal relations with and ni}- attachment for John F. 
Rixey .might be best told — if these need be told at all in this 
presence — by reference to my correspondence. Letters from 
my close friends and relatives, and even comparative strangers, 
were filled with words of condolence for me personally, and 
expressions of regret and sympathy at the loss I had sustained 
in the death of one of whom they had heard me speak so often 
and so highly. 

I am comforted by the thought that these words of praise I 
here express in one form or another I uttered of him while he 
lived. I shall love to recall his form and features, and during 
the active years that are left me I shall now and then visit 
the spot where we laid him to rest. 

Peace to his memory. May a kind Providence guard and 
protect those who directly bind his memory to earth. 

FURTHER ACTION OF THE HOUSE. 

Mr. Speaker: I move that as a further mark of respect to 
the memory of the deceased the House take a recess until 12 
o'clock noon. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 30 minutes a. m.) the House 
was declared in recess. 

The recess having expired, at 12 o'clock noon the House was 
called to order by the Speaker. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE 

Saturday, February 9, igoy. 

A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. W. J. 
Browning, its Chief Clerk, communicated to the Senate the 
intelligence of the death of Hon. John F. Rixey, late a Rep- 
resentative from the State of Virginia, and transmitted the 
resolutions of the House thereon. 

The Vice-President laid before the Senate the following 
resolunons of the House of Representatives, which were read: 

In the House of representatives, 

February 9, /907. 

Resolved That the House has heard with deep regret and profound 
sorrow of the death of the Hon. John F. Rixey, a Representative from 
the State of Virginia. 

Resolved, That a committee of seventeen Members of the House, with 
such members of the Senate as may be joined, may be appointed to attend 
the funeral at Culpeper, Va., and that the necessary expenses attending 
the execution of this order be paid out of the contingent fund of the House. 

Resolved, That the Sergeant-at-Arms be authorized and directed to take 
such steps as may be necessary for properly carrying out the provisions of 
this resolution. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate 
and transmit a copy thereof to the family of the deceased. 

The Speaker announced the appointment of Mr. Jones, Mr. Hay, ^Ir. 
Lamb Mr Flood, Mr. Maynard, Mr. Glass, Mr. Slemp, Mr. Southall, 
Mr Sounders, of Virginia; Mr. Foss, of lUinois; Mr. Meyer, of Louisiana; 
Mr William W. Kitchin, of North Carolina; Mr. Gregg, of Texas; Mr. 
Williams, of Mississippi; Mr. De Armond, of Missouri; Mr. Burton, of 
Delaware, and Mr. Slayden, of Texas, members of the committee on the 
part of the House. 

47 



48 Memorial Addresses: JoJm Frankliti Rixey 

Mr. Daniel. Mr. President, this forenoon, as the Members 
of the two Houses of Congress were assembling for their daily 
task, intelligence came that the Hon. John Franklin Rixey, 
who for five terms has represented the Eighth district of Vir- 
ginia in the House of Representatives, had this morning de- 
parted this life at his residence in this city. 

I move, Mr. President, that this body, having received offi- 
cial notification of his death, adopt the resolutions which I send 
to the desk. 

The \^ice-President. The Senator from \"irginia proposes 
resolutions, which will be read. 

The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with deep sensibility the announce- 
ment of the death of Hon. John F. Rixey, late a Representative from the 
State of Virginia. 

Resolved, That a committee of seven Senators be appointed by the Vice- 
President to join the committee appointed on the part of the House 
of Representatives to take order for superintending the funeral of the 
deceased. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to the 
House of Representatives. 

The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to the 
re.solutions submitted b}' the Senator from Virginia. 

The resolutions were unanimously agreed to. 

The Vice-President appointed as the committee on the 
part of the Senate, under the second resolution, Mr. Daniel, 
Mr. Taliaferro, Mr. Dick, Mr. Pattenson, Mr. Ankeny, IVIr. 
Flint, and Mr. Clarke of Arkansas. 

Mr. Daniel. Mr. President, as a further mark of respect to 
the memory of the decea.sed, I move that the Senate adjourn. 

The motion was imanimou.sly agreed to; and (at 4 o'clock 
and 25 minutes p. m. ) the Senate adjourned until Monday, 
February 11, 1907, at 12 o'clock meridian. 



Proccedi)ip-s in tJie Senate 



49 



Wednesday, February 27, igoy. 
Mr. Daniel. Mr. President, I take this occasion to give 
notice that on Satiirdaj' afternoon, before a recess or adjourn- 
ment, I shall ask the Senate to adopt appropriate resolutions 
and to take becoming action concerning the late Representative 
John F. Rixey, who recentlj^ died, and whose funeral has been 
attended by a committee of this bod}'. 

Saturday, March 2, igoy. 
The Vice-President. The Chair lays before the Senate res- 
olutions from the House of Representatives, which will be read. 
The Secretary read the resolutions of the House, as follows : 

In the Housk t)F Representatives, 

February 2^, igoj. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the Hon. John F. Rixey, late 
a Member of this House from the State of Virginia, and in pursuance of 
the order heretofore made, the business of the House be now suspended to 
enable his associates to paj- fitting tribute to his high character and dis- 
tinguished services. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 

Resolved, That the Clerk be, and he is hereby, instructed to send a copy 
of these resolutions to the family of the deceased. 

Mr. Daniel. Mr. President, I beg leave to offer the resolu- 
tions which I send to the desk. 

The resolutions were read and unanimously agreed to, as 
follows : 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of Hon. John F. Rixey, late a Representative from the State of Virginia. 

Resolved, That the business of the Senate be now suspended in order 
that a fitting tribute may be paid to his memory, 

H. Doc. 812, 59-2 4 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 

Mr. President: When two days hence the Fifty-ninth 
Congress shall cease and the term of the Sixtieth Congress 
shall begin, there will be names accredited to the new roll 
which will have none to answer thereto. Death has been 
busy in this Congress. Four Senators and five Representa- 
tives have ceased to be. This day three weeks ago John 
Franklin Rixey, of Culpeper, Va., Representative of the 
Eighth distric't, was numbered amongst them. He was the 
able and effective Representative of that district for ten years. 
He had been chosen, although absent from the State by reason 
of his sickness, to succeed himself. No need for his presence. 
The people knew him and were for him. The voice of the 
Ruler of the Universe has overruled the voice of the people 
and has disposed the purposes of man. 

Mr. RixEY was born in Culpeper, near the county seat 

which bears the county name, on the ist day of Augu.st, 1854. 

He died in this city on the 9th day of February of the 

present y r, at the home of his brother, Surgeon-General 

Rixey, of the Navy. His body, attended by the committee 

of the two Houses of Congress which had been appointed to 

pay to him the last honors, and followed by many mourning 

friends, was borne to his home and consigned to his native 

dust. 

51 



52 Memorial Addresses: John Fra7ikliii Rixey 

There is a brief sketch of him in the Congressional 
Directory, which recites as follows: That he was educated in 
the common schools, at Bethel Academy, and the Universit}' 
of Virginia; is a lawj^er and farmer; was Commonwealth's 
attorney for Culpeper County twelve years; was elected to 
the Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth 
Congresses, and reelected to the Fifty-ninth Congress, receiv- 
ing 7,986 votes to 2,443 for his opponent. To this account 
should be added that he was reelected to succeed himself at 
the Congressional election of November, 1906. 

For five terms he had faithfully served his people with dili- 
gence and with successful attention to every duty committed to 
his hands. 

It is probable that there is no district in the United States, 
unless it be the Congressional district of Maryland which ad- 
joins the District of Columbia, which has .so many affairs to be 
attended to in Washington as has this Eighth district of Vir- 
ginia. ]\Iany of its people have located here. Many who are 
engaged in Washington on official or other business have located 
there. Many of them find employment here by rea.son of their 
proximity and convenient access. The Representative of the 
district has therefore entailed upon him multifarious duties 
such as are but lightly shared by Representatives from distant 
places. 

With patience, with alacrity, with faithful and affectionate 
regard for his people, as well as with a loyal and devout sense 
of obligation to his country, Mr. RiXEV bestowed a constant 
and unrelaxing devotion to his tasks. 

The feelings of a past generation have died out save in honor 
of the past. There is nothing of public .sentiment in Virginia 
that is not in unison with the United States. Congressman 
RixKv, though in boyhood he knew war in its sternest and 



Address of Mr. Daniel.^ of Virginia 53 

bitterest wa3-s, represented to-day and to-morrow as much as 
ever his brother, who heads the Medical Corps of our Naval 
Department. 

As a member of the Naval Committee of the House he dis- 
tinguished himself by his knowledge of naval affairs, and he 
was always to be found at the post of dut3^ His interest in and 
attention to agriculture led to the measure that established the 
experimental agricultural station in Alexandria County, just 
across the Potomac River. 

Of a fine mind, well trained in the schools, and with an earn- 
est and energetic nature which was tireless and ceaseless in pur- 
suing the ends it aimed at, few men have been so concentrative 
in their endeavors or so successful in their attainment. 

His boyhood was spent at the very focus of the active scenes 
of war. From his father's house, where were the headquarters 
of the Federal Army in the town of Culpeper, General Grant, on 
the 3d of May, 1864, rode forth to the battle of the Wilderness. 
During the four years while the storm of conflict raged over 
northern Virginia scenes of swift recurring battles were familiar 
to his eyes and the diapason of the cannonade familiar to his 
ears. When war ended, the territory which he represented 
and that adjoining had come to be known as ' ' the Flanders of 
the War. ' ' 

When the surviving Confederate soldiers returned to their 
homes, Maj. Albert G. Smith, who had been wounded in Pick- 
ett's charge at Gettj'sburg, and who I have heard described by 
his comrades as standing on the heights with the hilt of a 
sword in his hand, which had been broken by some hurtling 
missile of the battle, established the Bethel Academy near the 
town of Warrenton, in Fauquier. As L,ee went to the head of 
Washington College, which became Washington and lyce Uni- 
versity, so Major Smith now devoted himself to training the 



54 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

hoys of the countryside in the ways of peace. Not forgetting 
that peace must al\va5-s be prepared for war, and instinctively 
knowing that " to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth" was 
the maxim of his people for the instruction of youth not less 
than the ancient Persian, he made it a military as well as a 
classical and mathematical academy. At one time one of his 
tutors was Major Jenkins, of South Carolina, afterwards dis- 
tinguished at Santiago, and many of his boys went forth with 
the Army of the United States to the Spanish war. 

In the Berkley School and in this academy young Rixey re- 
ceived his early education, and then repaired to the Universit}- 
of Virginia and to the study of law. 

He was ere long elected Commonwealth's attorney for Cul- 
peper County, and then commenced the Congressional career 
which has been so unhappily closed by his death. 

For scenic and for dramatic things and for those which at- 
tract conspicuous notice, Mr. Rixey displayed but little taste. 
His was a businesslike and practical mind, that looked to the 
accomplishment of results rather than to ostentation or parade 
on the road to them. 

He was a lover of the country, and lived at a beautiful home 
near Brand}' Station, which overlooks the field of the great 
cavalry battle of June 9, 1863, between Stuart and Pleasanton. 
A third of the war was fought in Virginia. The Eighth and 
the adjoining districts, with that around Richmond and Peters- 
burg, were its centers. Within view of the summit on which 
stands his home are many other battlefields and scenes identi- 
fied with the great .strife which on each side made ambition 
virtue. 

As success came to him he increa.sed his holdings of land. 
A farm was to him the spot of most attractiveness. On the 



Address af Mr. Daniel., of Virginia 55 

scarred Manassas field, scene of great wrestlings, as well as in 
his native count}- of Culpeper, he rejoiced to see the grass 
grow and his flocks and herds feed amidst scenes of pastoral 
beaut3% 

His was a wholesome as well as an active and busy life. The 
domesticity of his nature manifested itself in his pursuits and 
aspirations whenever public cares relaxed. 

He was an able lawyer; well read in the books and well 
practiced in his profession. He established high rank at a bar 
where he was brought into competition and conflict with many 
of the brightest and ablest minds of the State. 

When he entered politics, he soon became a leader of the 
people. The successive times that he was chosen to represent 
them here attest their fidelity to him even as his own career 
attests his fidelity to them. 

If deep conviction, thorough devotion, and the enthusiasm of 
ser\dce make the partisan, such, then, must Mr. Rixey be 
counted. But he was not a man offensive either in words or 
waj'S to those opposed to him. Standing for the independence 
and honesty of opinion, for free action and free speech, he 
respected those whose opinions were different from his own. 
He observed the wisdom that comes from the heart. He obe)' ed 
the wise counsel so well given by Allen G. Thurman, " the old 
Roman," when he said " Keep a civil tongue in yoViX mouth." 

Such is the characteristic of all well-mannered, self-respecting, 
and well-poised men, who remember that by the very truths on 
which their own rights are founded rest also side b)^ side with 
them the equal rights of others. "So use thine own as not to 
hurt another ' ' is the maxim of our common law, borrowed from 
the broad-minded and deep-hearted jurisprudence of ancient 
Rome, that lays its inflexible injunction on the tongue as well 



56 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

as on the hand of man and keeps him within the bounds of his 
own domain in the moralities, decencies, and civilities of life as 
well as in his dealings with respect to material things. 

Partisan he may have been — most of us are — but he never 
trenched b}' word upon the character, as he did not by deed 
upon the belongings, of another. 

The Eighth district of Virginia is one of the most historic 
regions of the United States. If its history were written, it 
would involve the writing of the history of the whole country 
from its colonial days to the present time. 

When one considers even the names of the counties which 
Mr. Rixey represented, he sees in them the names drawn from 
memory of the motherland rather than from the new inspira- 
tions of the Republic. 

Culpeper County, of which he was a native and a resident, 
was formed in 1 748 and named after Lord Culpeper, one of the 
colonial governors of Virginia. 

Fairfax County dates its origin to 1742 and bears the name 
of Lord Fairfax, who held an immense grant from the English 
Crown. Fauquier County separated from Prince William in 
1759, and was called after Charles Fauquier, colonial governor 
from 1758 to 1767. King George County, formed in 1720 from 
Richmond County, takes its name from the English King. 
Loudoun County, formed in 1757 from Fairfax, gets it name 
from the Earl of Loudoun, who connnanded the British forces 
during the latter part of the French war. Prince William 
County, named after an English prince, was created from Staf- 
ford and King George. Stafford, formerly a part of West- 
moreland, was formed in 1675. Louisa, created in 1742 from 
Hanover, and Alexandria, the newcomer — all alike bear the 
ancient names. I have not examined to see, but, unless in 
New iMigland, I doul)t if there is another Congressional district 



Address of Mr. Daniel^ of Virgi)iia 57 

iu the United States which in all its counties save one — in this 
case that of Alexandria — bears the old colonial names which 
they bore when independence was declared. And Alexandria 
County has the fine flavor of the ancient days, which it 
acquired from the venerable city which was the home of both 
Washington and lyce. 

The traits of the fatherland are in them. But they are 
Americans all; founders and lovers of freedom as the greatest 
of human possessions; patriotic to the core; upholders of home 
rule, but filled with the splendid aspiration of the reunited 
nation. 

They are lovers of the land, and on isolated plantations they 
have planted pleasant homes. They have taken part not only 
in the Indian wars that antedated the Revolution, but in every 
war with which this country has been identified. I noted not 
long since, in traversing some of the reminiscences of Culpeper, 
that George Washington was surveyor of that county when he 
was a youth of 17, in the service of Lord Fairfax, making his 
own living and going out into the adventures of life before he 
had yet become a man. In the records of that county there is 
this entry: 

20th July, 1749. George Washington, Gent, produced a commission 
from the president and members of William and Mary College, appoint- 
ing him to be surveyor of this county, which was read, and thereupon he 
took the usual oaths to His Majesty's person and Government and took 
and subscribed the abjuration oath and test, and then took the oath of 
surveyor, according to law. 

Four of our great Presidents are identified with its histor3^ 
Washington's tomb is in Fairfax. Madison lived and rests in 
Orange. Monroe for a time had his seat at Oak Hill, in Lou- 
doun. Zachary Taylor was born in Orange. 

When the Revolution broke out the Culpeper minute men 
made a name for themselves, not only in the swift patriotism 



58 Memorial Addresses: John Franklni Rixey 

with which they responded to the call of Governor Patrick 
Henry, but by their conduct upon the field of battle. The 
Culpeper minute men turned out for war the last time in the 
Spanish war. From the day of the Revolution to this hour 
they have always been ready to respond at a moment's warning 
to their country's call. They float on their flag the picture of 
a rattlesnake, with the legend "Don't tread on me!" Those 
Culpeper minute men and the men of the adjoining counties 
were soon formed into a regiment. Lawrence Taliaferro, a 
kinsman of the distinguished Senator now representing Florida 
in this body, was its colonel. 

Stevens was its lieutenant-colonel, afterwards a general. 
Thomas Marshall, father of the great Chief Justice, was its 
major, and .serving as a heutenant was the incipient Chief 
Justice himself. 

There is a story told of this regiment at the battle of the 
Great Bridge, which I like to refer to, because it is character- 
istic of the great people who inhabit the region of Virginia 
along the Potomac, and which those going westwardly in the 
State and beyond it have carried with them. This regiment 
encountered in the battle of the Great Bridge a regiment of 
the British regulars. They were behind earthworks, and when 
the British .regulars charged them they were beaten back. 
Swift to heal, as quick and steady to fight, the Virginians 
leaped over the breastworks and helped to bind the wounds 
which they had made. 

The people of this whole section are high spirited, chivalrous, 
brave, quick to re.sent insult, firm and strong in resistance to 
wrong, but at the same time one of the sweetest-tempered and 
most hospitable people that one could meet upon a summer's 
day. They are lovers of the land. They rejoice in the scenes 
of the countryside, in the fields, in the .streams, in the woods. 



Address of Mr. Daniel^ of l^irgiiiia 59 

In their libraries are good books that abound not in sensations. 
They are good hunters and fine marksmen, and the}- are hos- 
pitable hosts. The refinements of life abide amongst them, 
and they are as gentle in peace as they are fierce and dauntle.ss 
in war. 

Mr. RixEY was a representative man of this countryside. His 
father was a landholder. He himself had that land thirst which 
made him buy and cultivate the land whenever he was able to 
do so. He bespoke a people who loved home, who imbibe prin- 
ciples of love of country from the fireside. They respect char- 
acter above all things; never call without reverence the name 
of woman. 

The Representatives of this district have always been men of 
mark. The district looks upon its Representative as a man who 
must be one fit to hold a great and responsible office and wortln- 
to discharge its trust and duty. Since the reconstruction period 
but six men have represented it: Elliot Braxton, descended from 
a signer of the Declaration of Independence; Eppa Hunton, 
renowned first in his service in the legislature of his State and 
in the State convention and then as a soldier, who led the iron- 
sides of battle; John S. Barbour, accomplished in many waj^s — 
in the studies of the academy; as president of a great railroad; 
as chairman of a great party; equal in mental gra.sp and in 
social dignity to any of the higher tasks of life. Then William 
H. F. Eee, a brave soldier and a noble gentleman, a man whose 
beautiful attachment to his every duty was like the esprit de 
corps which converts the soldier to the cau.se which commands 
his allegiance; then Elisha Meredith, a younger man of a new 
generation, but one of a most noble and manly type; manly 
and vigorous mold, generous, active, a true friend, a hardy 
champion, a man of hope who died too young, and then suc- 
ceeding him came John F. Rixey, whom we mourn to-day. 



6o Memorial Addresses: John Frciiikliu Rixey 

Three of these Representatives have died while they served 
in the House of Representatives, Lee and Meredith, and now, 
also, Rixey. Two '^f them became Senators of the United 
States — John S. Barbour and Eppa Hunton — and the former was 
borne from this Chamber to his last home. The latter survives, 
venerated of all. Who will be Mr. Rixey' s successor no man 
knows, but we all know that these six gentlemen who have rep- 
resented their State in the halls of Congress have represented 
it and their country well, and that their successor has worthy 
exemplars before him. 

Mr. Rixey's home life was a happy one. He wedded Miss 
Barbour, daughter of James Barbour, who was a lawyer, legis- 
lator, and publicist, who was distinguished by the abilities 
which have characterized the family to which he belonged. 
For many years they dwelt together in the holy estate and in 
the quiet hospitable home. We pause at its threshold. But 
to its inmates go forth our deepest s>-mpathy for the loss 
irreparable. We can neither retrieve nor heal it; we can 
only bow before Him whose mercy endureth forever. 

In the fifty-fourth j-ear of his age, while his ripened facul- 
ties, cultivated by experience as well as by education, were at 
maturity, and when they might have been of most l)enefit to 
his country, to his family, and to his kind, he has been cut 
down. There were premonitions of his end. A year ago, 
when Congress adjourned, it was known that he was ailing. 
It seemed that that dreadful disease, tuberculosis, had menaced 
if not yet fully attacked him. He went to the wholesome 
climate of Colorado seeking relief. But he sought it there in 
vain. He returned to his home. During his absence he had 
been chosen as his own succe.s.sor. But it was not to ]>e. He 
was for .several months an invalid, and it l)ecanie evident that 
the hand of the de.stroyer could not be stayed. Patient, sub- 



Address of Mr. Daniel^ of ViJ'ginia 6i 

missive, meeting the fate in store for him with the fortitude 
with which he had contemplated all the tasks and dangers and 
tribulations of life, peacefully, at his brother's home in this 
city, on the 9th day of last month, he breathed his last. 

It is a characteristic of our race, Mr. President, and one 
worthy to be cultivated and preserved, that they do not make 
loud lamentations over the dead and do not seek ostentatious 
funerals. When their time has come they step aside for the 
generation that presses upon their heels. They would not add 
one memory of grief and sorrow to those left behind. It can 
be said of John F. Rixey that he performed a man's part in 
life and did it well and faithfully. It is enough. 

His kindred, his companions, and his people honored him. 
Those dear to him loved him. Such was his reward. He 
proved equal to all the tasks which he assumed. He has 
passed hence, lea\'ing a name to be cherished by those who 
loved him and to be honored and respected by those who knew 
him. 



62 Memorial Addresses: John Fra7iklin Rixey 



Address of Mr* Hopkins, of Illinois 

Mr. President: Death is ever an unwelcome guest. He is 
no respecter of person, no respecter of time or place. The 
laughing schoolboy feels the clutch of his icy fingers and passes 
from the pleasures and pastimes of childhood into the great 
unknown. The gray-haired man, w^ho has conquered every 
obstacle that appeared in his pathw^ay during a long and stren- 
uous life, though surrounded by every comfort and luxury that 
wealth can bring, responds to the call that death sends to him, 
and leaves all and follows death out into the shadows and across 
the dark waters that separate this life from a future existence. 

However long may be the struggle, however fierce the con- 
test, all alike must .sooner or later yield to that grim-visaged 
mon.ster. 

John F. Rixey has trodden the path prepared for him by 
death long before his exit from this world, and has passed 
into the great unknown. Many years before death finally 
claimed him for his own he recognized that he was stricken 
with a mortal disease, and, like the Christian philo.sopher that 
he was, prepared to meet his final conqueror with that perfect 
resignation that comes from a realization of a well-.spent life 
here and an assurance that the transition from this life to 
another will take him to that better world where all Christians 
are taught the just will meet. 

Death achieved no mastery over him. He fought the battle 
as becomes a true Christian, and when the inevitable hour 
approached welcomed death more in the spirit of a victor than 
that of the vanquished. Dearly as he loved this life, his 
family and friends, his native State and his country, he 



Address of Mr. Hopkins.^ of Illinois 63 

believed that he was passing into that higher and holier 
existence that we are all taught is the fortune of those who 
follow the simple precepts of a Christian life. 

I first met Mr, Rixky in the House of Representatives in the 
Fift3'-fifth Congress. He had just been elected to the House 
from the Eighth Virginia district, and I had been reelected from 
the then Eighth district of Illinois. I had had a service of 
some 3'ears in the House of Representatives and was well 
acquainted with man}' of the older Members of Congress from 
that State. That great Commonwealth and her public men 
have always had a great interest for me. The Northwest 
Territory, from which the State of Illinois was carved, was 
once a possession of Virginia, and all loyal citizens of Illinois 
take a natural pride in that vState and her public men. Mr. 
RixEY was a typical Virginian. He had inherited that love of 
country life that is characteristic of the great men of that 
State from the time of Washington and Jefferson to that of 
Lee and Wise. The men of mark in that State have been men 
who were passionately fond of country life. 

Mr. RiXEV did not possess the brilliant qualities of mind 
that made Patrick Henry the first orator of his time and Robert 
E. Lee one of the greatest militar}^ geniuses of his age. His 
attainments were of the solid, substantial kind, that were so 
marked in the t^'pe ot men like James Madison in the earlier 
hi,story of the State, and more recently' in men like the late 
Senator Barbour. 

In his brief biographical sketch that he prepared for the 
Congressional Directory he described himself as a lawyer and 
a farmer. To men residing in great cities like Chicago, New 
York, or Philadelphia this combination of farmer and lawyer 
seems inconsistent, but it accurately described the life that was 
led by Mr. Rixey. He w'as a country-bred lawyer, and when 



64 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

lie was not engaged in court or over his law books in the prepa- 
ration of a case for trial, was out upon his plantation enjoying 
to the fullest limit the pleasures of rural life. It is said that 
he was very successful at the bar. From my knowledge of 
him as a Member of Congress, I can well appreciate the fact 
of his great success with courts and juries. He had an air 
of honesty that disarmed opposition, and possessed a clearness 
of speech and a cogency of reasoning that must have made him 
very effecti\-e with the jury of twelve or with the judge. 

His experience upon his farms in coming in close touch with 
nature gave him keener perceptions and a nicer judgment on 
all questions of right and justice than can be acquired in a 
smoky law ofhce in a great city. There is something about life 
in the country that broadens and enlightens the mind. Men 
who follow intellectual pursuits are greatly strengthened and 
broadened by this contact with nature that one derives from 
country life. John Marshall would never have given to the 
country and to the world those marvelous opinions constru- 
ing the Constitution of our common country had he been 
deprived of the benefits and influences exerted upon him in 
that ideal country life that he enjoyed during the thirty-odd 
years that he was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

The late Judge Drummond, of Chicago, is a man whose 
name is revered and loved by all lawyers who had the good 
fortune to practice in the circuit court of the United States at 
Chicago — the court over which he presided. I have often 
heard it said by those who were most familiar with him that 
whenever he was troubled over legal questions that were argued 
before him or when his mind was clouded or uncertain on what 
course he should adopt on litigation pending before him, he 
would go out into the country to his little farm, and there, 
while he was overseeing the care of his cattle and sheep and 



Address of Mr. Hopkins, of Illinois 65 

hogs and horses, he solved the problems that perplexed him 
while in his court room in the great city; and when he came 
back to his court he came with a mind clarified and broadened 
by his country experience and administered the law in a spirit 
of fairness and justice that has placed his name among the 
greatest judges of this or any other country. 

Mr. RiXEY naturally, from his mode of life, took a deep, 
interest in politics, and that he should eventually represent his 
people in Congress was as natural and as inevitable as that 
night follows day. His practice at the bar in the circuit carried 
him over many of the counties of his district. The people in 
the court room learned of his high character, his candor, and 
his fidelity to duty, and when the time came in his career when 
he felt that he could abandon in whole or in part his law 
practice the people of the Eighth Virginia district honored 
themselves by electing him to the House of Representatives of 
the United States. The repeated elections which followed his 
first, show how well he met the expectations of his constituents 
and how fully he discharged all of the duties of a Representative 
in Congress. ' I found him during the Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, 
and Fifty-seventh Congresses, in which I served with him, 
always alert when the interests of his constituents or of his 
State were involved. He was a broad-minded, patriotic citizen, 
and while he never forgot the people of his district or of his 
State, he w^as always quick to respond to any question that 
involved the true interests of his country. 

Mr. President, Virginia will undoubtedly have in the future, 
as she has had in the past, men to represent her in the Congress 
of the United States of marvelous oratorical ability, but she 
will have no one, in my judgment, who will be more faithful 
to her interests or more true to his ideals than was John F. 

RlXEY. 

H. Doc. 812, 59-2 5 



66 Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 



Address of Mr. HEMENWAYt of Indiana 

Mr. President: I desire to add a few words of tribute to 
the memor}^ of John Franklin Rixey. I served with him in 
the lower House of Congress, and there learned to respect and 
admire him. He was a member of the Committee on Naval 
Affairs, and my position on the Committee on Appropriations 
frequently brought me in personal contact with the members of 
his committee, and I shall never forget the industry, patience, 
and patriotism with which Mr. Rixey discharged his duties as 
a Representative of the great State of Virginia. We differed 
in politics, but above partisanship there always shone out from 
his character the higher and nobler sentiments of a patriotic 
American citizen. 

He was a typical Virginian, and he was proud of her history. 
He knew Virginia as the great State that she is, that has 
furnished to our country some of our most noted statesmen and 
greatest jurists. He was born in Culpeper Count}- August i, 
1854, during the days when public sentiment was arraying itself 
on one side or the other of the question that seven years later 
resulted in the greatest war the world has ever witnessed. His 
earlier impres.sions were formed during the days when men 
thought deep and strong, when martial nuisic filled the air and 
soldiers were marching to war. Though he lived in a section 
of the country where the fruits of war were most bitter and 
where the hand of destruction fell most heavily, yet in his life 
and ]>ublic service there was naught but the broadest states- 
manship that rejoices in a great united country. 

Words of eulogy can not add to or detract from the fame of 
any man, but when offered as they are to-day they do credit to 



Address of Mr. Heniciizvay.^ of Indiana 67 

those who speak them. Perhaps no higher tribute can be paid 
a man in public life than the tribute that he labored earnestl)' 
and faithfully to bring about matters of public benefit, and 
perhaps no public man who had an ambition to serve the people 
faithfully and earnestl}' would desire a greater compliment than 
to have it said of him "he succeeded." 

Measured by this test, Mr. Rixet'.s life was complete. He 
not only served his people diligentl}' and faithfully and accom- 
plished much good, but he made many friends, who shall always 
remember him pleasantly and kindly. 



68 Memorial Addresses: John Franklm Rixey 



Address of Mr. Carmack, of Tennessee 

Mr. President: The death of John F. Rixey was to me 
a personal grief. I served with him as a Member of the House, 
was brought into close and frequent contact with him in com- 
mittee, and learned to know him — head and heart. We entered 
the House together. We became friends almost as soon as we 
became acquaintances. This friendship, upon vsxy part, was 
based upon the only sure and enduring foundation of friend- 
ship, an admiration for the solid qualities of the man. I 
observed in my association with him that his conscientiousness 
in the performance of public duties was marked and exceptional. 
He loved to know things thoroughly and to do things well. He 
sought with earnest purpose to know his premises perfectl}^ 
before he reasoned to the conclusion. He brought to the con- 
sideration of public questions a mind that was lucid, clear, and 
logical. It seemed to me that he labored to cast out of his 
thought all prejudice and preconceived opinion when he had to 
deal with a particular case. He had faxed principles which he 
held, not for show nor for purposes of academic discussion. 
They were to him rules of life, and he made his opinions and 
his conduct in particular cases conform rigidl)^ thereto. Truth 
and right and justice were always present with him. 

In dealing with public matters his thought was directed to 
the merits of the question in debate rather than to the temper 
or disposition of his audience, and his power of persuasion la}' 
in the force of his reasoning, the lucidity of his statement, and 
his clear comprehension of the subject. He was a man of abil- 
ity — of much more than usual ability — and yet it was his char- 
acter more than his intellect that commanded respect. The 



Address of Mr. Cariiiack.^ of Tennessee 69 

same might be said of every man who is truh' great. It was 
true of Washington; it was true of Lee; it was true of Alfred. 
John F. Rixey had a character which made him love the right; 
he had an intellect which enabled him to understand and 
defend it. 

He therefore could always command attention. While never 
a rhetorical, he was always an interesting, speaker, for he brought 
to the discussion of every question that most compelling of all 
faculties, earnestness — an evident sincerit}' and a strong con- 
viction. His intellectual abilities would not have made him 
what he \vas if they had not been coupled with love of truth 
and justice. I saw and observed this quality in him when we 
were members of the Committee on Claims in the House of 
Representatives. No false or unjust demand upon the public 
Treasury could evade his relentless questioning; Ijut he was as 
eager to do justice to the claimant as he was to the Govern- 
ment, and every honest claim found in him an earnest champion. 

Before he entered public life he had w^on distinction as a 
lawj'er in competition with a bar famed for legal lore and 
skilled in forensic combat. There were perhaps many of those 
whom he met in such combat who had, in the popular sense of 
the term, a greater gift of eloquence than he. He was a match 
for the best of them, because he was learned in the law, indus- 
trious in the preparation of his cause, and clear and logical in 
its presentation, and had that indescribable power of character 
which gives double power to the intellectual faculties. Those 
who knew him as a lawj-er not onl}- testify' to his ability, but to 
the fidelity with which he observed the ethics and honorable 
traditions of a noble profession. This was a part of his character 
as a gentleman, born and bred. 

From my first acquaintance with John F. Rixev he seemed 
a man in feeble and failino- health, whose mental energies held 



yo Memorial Addresses: John Franklin Rixey 

disease at bay. In the latter years of his service this fatal 
disease made steady progess upon him, but he clung heroically 
to his post of duty, disregarding the warnings of his physicians 
and the pleadings of his friends that he might be faithful — faith- 
ful to the last— to his trust. He felt that the high honors his 
people had bestowed upon him demanded of him a great sac- 
rifice in their service. He made that sacrifice to the uttermost — 
' ' greater love hath no man than this. ' ' 

John F. Rixev w^as not only e.steemed and respected, but by 
those who knew him he was loved. He had that charm of 
manner which goes with a pure and upright soul — the charm 
which, unconsciously and without effort, .sheds itself abroad, a 
charm which all men feel, but w'hich none can define. 

It is to me a melancholy pleasure to lay my humble wreath 
upon the coffin of so grand a man. I hope the few but earnest 
words I speak may be of some comfort to his family and his 
friends. Whenever such a life goes out there is the comforting 
thought that such a character and such a life can never be in 
vain. The pure .spirit of John F. Rixey has passed beyond the 
bounds of this mortal life; but he lives, not alone in the loving 
hearts of friends and family, Init in the bles.sed influence he 
left behind, which will help to make in his own image the lives 
of those who come after him. 



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